Let’s say evil sadistic scientists kidnap you, bring you into their laboratory, and give you two options:
A: they incinerate your brain.
OR
B: they selectively destroy almost all of the neurons in your brain associated with memories and somehow create new connections to create different memories.
Which option would you choose?
If you see any reason to choose option B over option A, then it would seem to me that you don’t really buy into “pattern identity theory” because pattern identity theory would suggest that you have effectively died in scenario B just as much as scenario A. The pattern of you from just before the operation has just had a discontinuously abrupt end.
Yet, I would still choose option B because I would still anticipate waking up as something or somebody that next morning, even if it were someone with a completely different set of memories, preferences, and sense of self, and surely that would be better than death. (Perhaps the evil scientists could even be so kind as to implant happier memories and healthier preferences in my new self).
Is this anticipation correct? I don’t see how it could be wrong. Our memories change a little bit each night during sleep, and still we don’t NOT wake up as at least someone (a slightly different person than the night before). I fail to see how the magnitude and/or rapidity of the change in memory could produce a qualitative difference in this regard. If it could, then where would the cut-off line be? How much would someone have to change my memories so that I effectively did not wake up the next morning as someone?
Note that this discussion is not just academic. It would determine one’s decision to use a teleporter (especially if it was, let’s say, a “1st generation” teleporter that still had some kinks in it and didn’t quite produce a 100% high-fidelity copy at the other end). Would such a 99% accurate teleporter be a suicide machine, or would your subjective experience continue at the other end?
In any case, pattern identity theory (which says the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to a continuation of a particular pattern of information) seems out the window for me.
Nor does some sort of “physical identity theory” (that posits that the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to the continuation of a particular set of atoms) make any sense because of how patently false that is. (Atoms are constantly getting shuffled out of our brains all the time).
Nor does some sort of “dualism” (that posits that the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to some sort of metaphysical “soul”) make any sense to me.
So at this point, I have no idea about under what conditions I will continue to have subjective experiences of some sort. Back to the drawing board....
In fact, people experience this all the time whenever we dream about being someone else, and wake up confused about who we are for a few seconds or whatever. It’s definitely important to me that the thread of consciousness of who I am survives, separately from my memories and preferences, since I’ve experienced being me without those, like everyone else, in dreams.
I sincerely see no reason to prefer B over A in your scenario—with the caveat being you said “almost” all memories being destroyed. If it was a total loss of memories and personality, each option would be equal in my view.
Option B is essentially making a choice to be “born” into existence, whereas A is choosing to remain unborn.
I agree that Option B is essentially making a choice to be “born” into existence, but wouldn’t that appeal to you more than non-existence? Perhaps I am just operating on that age-old human fear of the unknown, but I think I would take a generically decent existence over non-existence any day of the week, even if that new existence were not the one I was used to having.
Don’t we continually choose to be “re-born” into existence as someone minutely different every moment we try to stay alive? I suppose committing suicide is like choosing Option A. So if you are the sort of person who would contemplate suicide, then Option A might have some appeal I suppose....
I’m in the “death isn’t that bad” camp, which I know is a minority here on LW. If you lose all your memories and personality, I don’t see the point of choosing to be reborn. It’s a flip of a coin sort of thing to me. Our identity seems to be tied to our memories and personality, if “identiity” has any meaning at all.
I’m of the philosophical view that death shouldn’t be feared/hated because it’s essentially the same state of affairs we were in pre-birth. Non-existence just isn’t that big a deal. We’re hard-wired to fear it...but we should be rational enough to recognize that’s nothing but evolution’s pressure on all species who made it this far.
The patterns “I” am made of aren’t all stored in my neurons. Some are in the neurons of my friends and family, in official documents, my genome and other places. In scenario B, I’d expect my loved ones to compulsively help me re-identify with my old identity, which would be easy compared to an attempt to make someone of an entirely different gender, age and social security number learn to identify with my old identity.
If you want me to not prefer scenario B over A, change it to remove all of those traces, too.
Hmmmm, do “I” get to experience any of those “traces” of myself if my brain dies? If not, then why would I care that they continue? Call me a hedonist, but all I really care about is what I can experience. Perhaps that is why the idea of wireheading appeals to me....
Well, like Skeptityke seems to be indicating, maybe it is better to say that identity is pattern-based, but analog (not one or zero, but on a spectrum from 0 to 1)… in which case while B would be preferable, some scenario C where life continued as before without incineration or selective brain destruction would be more preferable still.
Here’s a thought experiment:
Let’s say evil sadistic scientists kidnap you, bring you into their laboratory, and give you two options:
A: they incinerate your brain.
OR
B: they selectively destroy almost all of the neurons in your brain associated with memories and somehow create new connections to create different memories.
Which option would you choose?
If you see any reason to choose option B over option A, then it would seem to me that you don’t really buy into “pattern identity theory” because pattern identity theory would suggest that you have effectively died in scenario B just as much as scenario A. The pattern of you from just before the operation has just had a discontinuously abrupt end.
Yet, I would still choose option B because I would still anticipate waking up as something or somebody that next morning, even if it were someone with a completely different set of memories, preferences, and sense of self, and surely that would be better than death. (Perhaps the evil scientists could even be so kind as to implant happier memories and healthier preferences in my new self).
Is this anticipation correct? I don’t see how it could be wrong. Our memories change a little bit each night during sleep, and still we don’t NOT wake up as at least someone (a slightly different person than the night before). I fail to see how the magnitude and/or rapidity of the change in memory could produce a qualitative difference in this regard. If it could, then where would the cut-off line be? How much would someone have to change my memories so that I effectively did not wake up the next morning as someone?
Note that this discussion is not just academic. It would determine one’s decision to use a teleporter (especially if it was, let’s say, a “1st generation” teleporter that still had some kinks in it and didn’t quite produce a 100% high-fidelity copy at the other end). Would such a 99% accurate teleporter be a suicide machine, or would your subjective experience continue at the other end?
In any case, pattern identity theory (which says the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to a continuation of a particular pattern of information) seems out the window for me.
Nor does some sort of “physical identity theory” (that posits that the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to the continuation of a particular set of atoms) make any sense because of how patently false that is. (Atoms are constantly getting shuffled out of our brains all the time).
Nor does some sort of “dualism” (that posits that the continuation of my subjective experience is attached to some sort of metaphysical “soul”) make any sense to me.
So at this point, I have no idea about under what conditions I will continue to have subjective experiences of some sort. Back to the drawing board....
In fact, people experience this all the time whenever we dream about being someone else, and wake up confused about who we are for a few seconds or whatever. It’s definitely important to me that the thread of consciousness of who I am survives, separately from my memories and preferences, since I’ve experienced being me without those, like everyone else, in dreams.
I would pick B because that destruction might not destroy all of the pattenrs which make me me, whereas A definitely will.
I sincerely see no reason to prefer B over A in your scenario—with the caveat being you said “almost” all memories being destroyed. If it was a total loss of memories and personality, each option would be equal in my view.
Option B is essentially making a choice to be “born” into existence, whereas A is choosing to remain unborn.
I’d tell the evil, sadistic scientist to pick.
I agree that Option B is essentially making a choice to be “born” into existence, but wouldn’t that appeal to you more than non-existence? Perhaps I am just operating on that age-old human fear of the unknown, but I think I would take a generically decent existence over non-existence any day of the week, even if that new existence were not the one I was used to having.
Don’t we continually choose to be “re-born” into existence as someone minutely different every moment we try to stay alive? I suppose committing suicide is like choosing Option A. So if you are the sort of person who would contemplate suicide, then Option A might have some appeal I suppose....
I’m in the “death isn’t that bad” camp, which I know is a minority here on LW. If you lose all your memories and personality, I don’t see the point of choosing to be reborn. It’s a flip of a coin sort of thing to me. Our identity seems to be tied to our memories and personality, if “identiity” has any meaning at all.
I’m of the philosophical view that death shouldn’t be feared/hated because it’s essentially the same state of affairs we were in pre-birth. Non-existence just isn’t that big a deal. We’re hard-wired to fear it...but we should be rational enough to recognize that’s nothing but evolution’s pressure on all species who made it this far.
The patterns “I” am made of aren’t all stored in my neurons. Some are in the neurons of my friends and family, in official documents, my genome and other places. In scenario B, I’d expect my loved ones to compulsively help me re-identify with my old identity, which would be easy compared to an attempt to make someone of an entirely different gender, age and social security number learn to identify with my old identity.
If you want me to not prefer scenario B over A, change it to remove all of those traces, too.
Hmmmm, do “I” get to experience any of those “traces” of myself if my brain dies? If not, then why would I care that they continue? Call me a hedonist, but all I really care about is what I can experience. Perhaps that is why the idea of wireheading appeals to me....
Well, like Skeptityke seems to be indicating, maybe it is better to say that identity is pattern-based, but analog (not one or zero, but on a spectrum from 0 to 1)… in which case while B would be preferable, some scenario C where life continued as before without incineration or selective brain destruction would be more preferable still.